Somali capital rocked by fresh clashes

Mogadishu - Heavy fire broke out Tuesday in the Somali capital as Ethiopian army units and Islamist insurgents clashed in southern Mogadishu killing at least seven civilians, witnesses said.

Machinegun and heavy mortar fire rattled the Al Kamin quarter and some shells exploded close to the presidential palace, an AFP correspondent said.

Residents said long-range mortar shells rained over the nearby Bakara area, leaving a trail of casualties.

"At least four people have been killed and six others wounded after a mortar shell landed in their house," said resident Hussein Ali Mohamed.

'The bodies are lying in the house'

"The bodies are lying in the house and the wounded cannot be taken out at this time," he added.

Another Bakara resident Halima Mohamed said an artillery shell crashed into her house wounding four brothers.

"Two people were killed by stray bullets as they fled," she added.

An AFP correspondent saw a body of another man killed in the fighting, bringing the total fatalities to at least seven.

But residents said the toll could be much higher as nobody had managed to venture into Al Kamin, one of the worst-hit neighbourhoods.

'We congratulate the heroic people of Somalia'

Tuesday's fighting is the latest in a series of skirmishes following a truce announced by elders of Mogadishu's dominant Hawiye clan after talks with Ethiopian military commanders.

But the talks foundered after Ethiopian troops refused to meet the elders for further negotiations unless commanders of the insurgent movement attended.

Ethiopian forces have been deployed in the country since the start of the year to boost a UN-backed transitional government, which it helped oust Islamists from much of south and central Somalia.

The truce followed four days of intense fighting which erupted March 29 when Ethiopian troops launched a crackdown on suspected insurgents accused of attacking government and Ethiopian army positions in the capital.

Elders said at least 1 000 people were killed and more than 4 000 wounded in what humanitarian groups described as the worst fighting in 15 years.

The UN refugee agency said that at least 124 000 people had fled Mogadishu in the past two months.

Somalia has lacked an effective government since the ousting of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 touched off a power struggle that exploded into inter-clan warfare.

About 1 500 African Union peacekeepers from Uganda deployed in the lawless city early March have failed to stem the upsurge in violence.

The Ugandans are an advance contingent of about 8 000 peacekeepers the pan-African body plans to deploy in Somalia to help President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed exert his tenuous control across the country.

In neighbouring Eritrea, which is accused of supporting the Islamists, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, head of the executive arm of the Islamists, called on Somalis to intensify their resistance against Ethiopian forces, whom he accused of "destruction and genocide against defenseless civilians".

"We congratulate the heroic people of Somalia, and their victorious resistance," Ahmed said in a joint statement issued with former powerful Somali parliament speaker Sheikh Sharif Hassan Aden in Asmara.

"We call upon all citizens everywhere to oppose the Ethiopian occupation, defend their country and guarantee the freedom and independence of the nation," he added.

Eritrea has called for the withdrawal of Ethiopian and Ugandan forces, warning that their presence in Somalia would worsen the situation. Asmara has rubbished claims of backing the insurgents.

Analysts have expressed fears that Ethiopia and Eritrea, still at odds over their unresolved 1998-2000 border conflict, may fight a proxy war in Somalia. - Sapa-AFP